Pardon my French
by Archea
Summary: Sherlock's closet Jekyll surfaces when he's had a drink, making him tenderly garrulous with John. It's all fine - or would be if Sherlock's subconscious let him speak English on these occasions. S/J slash, part of my Language Kink Series.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer** : Sherlock belongs to MM. Conan Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss and probably a few others - in his case, I'd advise collective baby-sitting.

**A/N** : Inspired by a prompt on the sherlock_bbc kinkmeme asking for a French!speaking Sherlock, written as a gift for Callensei and posted in two parts. Set at the end of TBB, after Sherlock's release of John and Sarah and his last interview with Dimmock. The French has been kept minimal and subtitled!

**Pardon my French**

_In water, one sees one's own face,_

_But drinking wine, one sees a friend's heart._

_French proverb_

It all begins with a closed case. When John and Sherlock –

But wait. Much as paradoxes make glittering incipits, they hardly render unto Caesar what is due to her – that is, apart from the ever-lagging rent and a suitable domestic tag. Let us, then, up our introductory ante : it all begins with a closed case iand/i Mrs Hudson's California punch, which has the colour of sangria and the vim of a thousand suns on the brink of Armageddon — and contributed to the late Hudson's downfall when he agreed to « a little pick-me-up after your hard day's work, dear » on the very evening he had planned some homework. For it takes some reflection to swing down a chopper on your wife's head when she's offering you a choice of three, and by the time Mr Hudson had girded his loins and revised his scope, Mrs Hudson's was safely locked in the pantry and Sherlock, with the assistance of LA's Major Crime Division, was putting an end to his rather amateur rendering of Jack Torrance.

It says a lot for Mrs Hudson's faith in male stamina that she takes up the very same punch upon seeing that dear John has brought his young lady home after a little outing. Sadly, circumstances independent of everyone's will make it impossible for John to test his resilience to Bacardi 151 before the morning-end of night, when his companion is no longer Doctor Sarah Sawyer.

* * *

><p>The case is closed, yet there is something ajar in John's soul, spacing out his steps as he climbs the stairs, uncertain if he should direct them to his bed and snatch a few hours' rest or follow Sherlock into their common room. Yes, something is at odds here, something is flawed – lacking – some degree of happiness. This is so different from the previous case, when they had giggled at a scene crime and spent their first evening racing each other through duck salad while deducing their future quarrels from the way John held his chopsticks. Back then, he had basked in Sherlock's merciless innocence in the face of matters of death and life; had childishly, selfishly reached out for a share in Sherlock's delight since it washed away so much in John himself that was neither young nor unsordid when it came to survival.<p>

And he had been foolish enough to believe that life with Sherlock would be – not an all-day feast of slapsticks and chopsticks, to be sure, but – why, yes, this joy, excitement, call it synched survival or shared resolution ? Instead, what he feels tonight is anger, mooring him apart from Sarah and Sherlock. Immediate anger at himself for failing to save the day again, anger at Sarah's parting words when she untucked herself from his curved arm (« I'll just go home, John » - making it clear that home is the safe place where he is not) and, more than anything else, hard reluctant anger at Sherlock for bringing on most of the resolution iwithout him/i.

« Hungry ? » Sherlock asks, coat in hand. His lips twitch in what John has come to recognize as Sherlock smiling out to him, just as lesser mortals call or cry out to their friends, and he, Sherlock's friend, finds his anger suddenly abating. The word has sparked off an echo, reaching back to their not-so-distanced past and first ebullient celebration.

Ah well. Perhaps there's still time for a little ebullience, now that John feels less like the butt of the case.

« Starving. Hmm, there's always the Chinese takeaway – oh god, that sounded like a daft pun. And – there's – » But of course Sherlock has seen the two glasses, filled and left untouched on the cluttered kitchen cabinet. John hesitates, then grabs them carefully before he sets back to the living-room. « I'm parched. Join me for a drink ? »

Sherlock does not answer. He is peering at John as the latter steps over to the sofa and coffee table, turning his back to the kitchen space and the two trays laden with plates and forks, lowering the glasses onto the tabletop.

« I might. »

* * *

><p>Twenty-five minutes later, John's spirits have sufficiently mended for him to extend a stockinged toe, stroke the belly of the carafe now keeping the coffee table under its dominion, and declare it officially half-full.<p>

« Oh, that dull old quandary » Sherlock retorts, and proceeds as per habit to prove John wrong by filling their glasses. Needless to say, the punch has shown itself worthy of its name by knocking John's inner Esculapes flat out cold before he could so much hiss « concussion » or « empty stomachs ».

« W'should – really – have toast of a thought » John says, quafffing his drink. The punch is glowing like red firelight against Sherlock's pale face as he presses the glass lazily to his mouth under John's mesmerized eyes. Most of the men he's known drink fast and furiously, slapping the alcohol into their veins, and there's Harry in her cups, a memory too sharp for comfort. But Sherlock drinks with slow, sensual fervor, sucking at the rhum with a faint buzz of approval until he lets the glass tumble into his lap and raises his eyes to John.

« _Oui_ » Sherlock answers, enunciating the word with a clarity that John's mind, its receiving end, is far from emulating. « iMais alors, je veux que ce soit à toi./i »

« Er ? » John mutters. He knows the language – that is, he knows the language has a name he knows – and that, it seems, is the best of his present knowledge. « Wha' d'you say ? »

Instead of answering, Sherlock leans brusquely forward, catching John's face between his hands. John stills. His memory is not so clouded that he has forgotten how Sherlock kept his face in a vice-like grip not long ago while he urged John to remember a painted wall. But tonight's hold merely cups his face, slim fingertips resting on his temples as Sherlock carries on earnestly – « _J'ai eu peur, tu sais_ » – and all John can do is stare back in helpless wonder. « _Quand je suis rentré et que tu n'étais plus là. Peur qu'ils t'aient fait du mal. J'aurais dû avoir peur pour elle aussi, logiquement, mais non. Toi d'abord. Toi surtout._ »

« Please » John says in a wisp of breath, because this is unbearable, this strange angular language raised between them yet rippling with tantalizing intimacy, « please, Sherlock, tell me what it is. ».

But Sherlock's head is keeling forward, as if jolted by an invisible string, and John's chest tightens at the sight. Under the tangle of hair half-obscuring his face, a voice comes out — fainter, oddly younger. « _Je ne savais pas que je tenais si fort à toi_ » Sherlock murmurs, and one of his hands falls on John's parted legs, sealing a patch of warmth to the curve of John's thigh.

John moistens his lips, but Sherlock's hand is already sliding off as he lets gravity pull him back to his end of the couch.

« It's French » John whispers. « You were — speaking French to me ? »

But Sherlock is no longer in a hearing condition.

Looking at his mouth, half-open and limber in sleep, John realizes how different it looks when Sherlock's eyes are closed. The eyes draw all of John's notice when Sherlock addresses him in the day, cold, clear-cut peepholes into a genius's mind, brimming with nerves and resolve. Yet hide these eyes, and Sherlock's mouth, sucking in the night air with a soft noise, exposes him at his most naked – life made unguarded flesh.

Letting slip unguarded words – for John.

He drags himself up, lifts Sherlock's feet and tucks them carefully under the sofa cushions. His head is a blotch of thrumming pain, and he knows, even as he reaches out to the light switch, that he has not a mortal's chance to remember what he heard tonight.

He also knows, from tonight's adventures, that ciphers can be solved.

[ _Oui, mais alors je veux que ce soit à toi_ : Yes, but then it's you I want to toast.

_J'ai eu peur, tu sais_ » : I was frightened, you know.

_Quand je suis rentré et que tu n'étais plus là. Si peur qu'ils t'aient fait du mal. J'aurais dû avoir peur pour elle aussi, logiquement, mais non. Toi, d'abord. Toi surtout._ : When I came back and saw you were not here. So frightened they'd hurt you. Logically, I should have feared for her, too, but no. You first. You more than anyone else.

_Je ne savais pas que je tenais si fort à toi_ : I didn't know you were so important to me.]

* * *

><p>Morning brings back England with a vengeance – that bruised light, John thinks, particular to English winters, an article he came to miss sorely in his Afghani days and cannot quite dissociate from the homely smell of English tea nor from Sherlock as he pours it for himself, standing (predictably) in the light and pinning down the last clues in his <em>very<em> English clipped drawl.

« Nine million pounds... jade... Dragon den... railway... »

The English words slide into John's understanding, making ideal sense as they pave the way to the end of the case. Paving a way for Sherlock to leave John well behind, never once looking at him across the yellow earthenware teapot (the carafe is nowhere to be seen). The more Sherlock translates and enlightens, the more distant his voice sounds to John, grounded to his table end by a brain-splicing migraine. Such a far cry from last night's cryptic boyish plea.

It is maddening, and John will be damned if he suffers this any further. So he waits until 221B has shooed them out into the first passing cab and, when it appears that Sherlock has no more to say, flings himself into the gap.

« Never knew you could speak French, by the way. »

It's not as if he had never taken a giant's leap before, catching up with Sherlock.

« Oh. »

... at times, that is, when Sherlock graciously allowed himself to be caught with. John spares a flicker of warmth for Molly Hooper and soldiers on.

« Well, yeah. You spoke it to me, yesterday night. When we – when we shared. That drink. You know. I remember it quite well. Don't you ? »

There. The leap has been leapt (though it feels in retrospect like a bunch of lame little jumps) and Sherlock is turning his face from the car window and its movable feast of London sights. For one shared second, Sherlock's face becomes as individual as each of the nameless humans left aside by the cab, alive with an emotion John cannot name – some quiet unquiet demand that could be fear, or trust – before it shutters itself out and back to the glass, so that all John can see is Sherlock's reflection laid over the myriad shades of London.

« Really ? No, I can't say I remember any of it. Care to tell me what I said ? »

And the rest is silence, except – yes he cares, and yes he will. Not now, but he will. John Watson is not a man to let a challenge slip unanswered, not when it comes to him in such vivid circumstances. As the cab swerves to a halt before the bank and they go their separate ways, Sherlock to dazzle a young woman and he to cash a check, John is already planning his next move.

* * *

><p>To begin with, he bides his time.<p>

Something he is quite good at, better than Sherlock who did not have a war to tutor him in the art of waiting out inaction. John never told anyone about his novice days at the Helmand base, but he remembers how he loitered among the little adobe houses, gazing at the chalk-white hills propped against a stony sky, hour upon hour, until each depressed breath felt like sandpaper to his lungs and he was ready to scream them raw.

The trick, he learnt of the first old trouper to take pity on him, was in duplicity. Chequer your time and mind neatly, colour each square in turn with a task you can focus on, and at the same time keep your mind one square ahead, blankly alert – so that when the fighting comes to square off the game, it finds you a fighter.

Very well then. John makes toast, boards his bus, hands out winter flu jabs liberally, comes home, makes tea, joins some of the Yarders for a bitter and a game of darts, grins at Lestrade before shooting the bullseye eight times running, comes home. And squares things with Sarah by taking her out to bury their first date properly. Sarah insists on the local Pret a Manger and John feels a tweak of guilt, but this beautiful woman is already saying « friend », is saying « colleague » to him in no uncertain tones he eats his French roll easily enough.

Sherlock no longer says anything to him. Sherlock is hibernating in his own private mindscape, where « Mmmmm » appears to be the long and the short of native communication. He lies in the lap of the couch – itheir/i couch, John catches himself thinking (and cuffs himself mentally for keeping at least a whole row ahead) – entranched behind a rustling wall of graphs and charts, and answers « Mmmmm » when asked what they are about. John is sorely tempted to dose Sherlock's tea with blended scotch, but remembers the Hippocratic oath and takes it out on the darts.

He watches, instead, for though he does not know in what hour his fight will come, he is a fair-minded man and will do nothing to trigger it forth. And come it does, one early January night, when Sherlock turns out to have been studying hypothermia iin vivo/i with a few experiments in mind. One of which consists in immersing himself in the Serpentine at regular intervals with a mouth thermometer and nothing much else on. The venture, fortunately, is brought to an early finish when Sherlock finds a swan already experimenting on his premises and proceeds to shoo him away : in the sound and fury that ensue, he has barely the time to grab his coat and run before a gaggle of night guardians converge upon him.

It is not quite eleven when John, focusing on his telly square, notices a sneezing Sherlock, barefoot at the door and peering at a mouth thermometer with a scowl.

John says « Bed » instinctly and innocently. Then snatches the thermometer from his flatmate's hands. « 38. All right, get undercover and I'll bring you some paracetamol. And hot fluid. And then, you can perhaps explain why you thought it advisable to take a midnight constitutional in the buff. »

« Make it a grog » is Sherlock's raucous answer as he heads to his room. « Mummy always said it clears the head overnight. It's the bloody bird's fault, anyway. It tried to bite me. And it squealed. »

« I don't think – »

« When do you ever ? Grog » Sherlock croaks sharply, closing the door between them.

John purses his lips, takes a glance at the thermometer, another at the closed door, and steps into the hall.

Zero Hour.


	2. Chapter 2

_(A/N : looks like this is turning into a three-part story after all! You won't have to wait too long for the epilogue however, I'm two-third through with it.)_

**Chapter 2**

« No, no, dear, not at all » says the Napoleon of Baker Street, putting up a hand to her curlered hair. « Come inside and I'll see what I can do. Bubble, babble, beetle, battle, boobs. You don't mind if I keep practising ? »

« Practising ? »

« My LipGym, dear. Fickle, pickle, tickle, buckle, boobs. So much cheaper than Botox, and it's pepped up my vocabulary level no end. Now, was it Bacardi you said you wanted ? »

She clicks on her kitchen lights and John, not for the first time since he's moved in, feels a soft twinge of longing. Mrs Hudson's kitchen reminds him of a Matryoshka doll, wooden and coloured with a glint of copper here and there, and like the doll it shelters a run of smaller, invisible kitchens, nested in John's memories of a time when food and warmth were not liabilities. Granted, his mum never thought of beadstitching Elton John's face on a teacosy, and the potted basil rubbing sides with the flour pot bears a close resemblance to...

« Pot, pat, put, putter, butter, boobs. Oh love, I'm sorry. No Baccardi. I think that last tot went in the rum cake for the Vicars and Tarts Party. »

John blinks.

« The Church Cake Raffle, dear. Marie Turner does like her little joke. Of course, if it's grog he wants we could try the Costa Rican version. Paddle, poodle, beadle, boobs. Now where did I put my Evergreen ? »

Pot and Evergreen – John makes a mental note to avoid all mention of Mrs Hudson's urban gardening at New Scotland Yard while the other John blinks back a beady eye. « Could be a lit-tle strongish, Mrs H. What about a drop of scotch? With lemon juice and hot water ? »

His landlady nods vigorously, shoving the Evergreen back in place. « Quite right, dear. I'm glad we agree – what the boy needs, really needs, is a hot Teddy. »

John, that man among men, is past the blinking stage. Instead, he finds a hot blush creeping up his neck column. « They call it a toddy nowadays, Mrs H. »

« Potato, potayto » Mrs H. replies pertly, putting the kettle on. She selects a king-sized cup with Little Miss Sunshine's freckled happy face on it and pours a dollop of scotch before squeezing half a lemon and jiggling the sugarbowl for good measure. « _A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go round, the medecing go_... Goggles, google, goofy, goody-goody. Here you are, love. Good luck. »

He stills, holding the fuming cup in both hands. But she is already closing her door on him, her kind smile a reminder that zaniness can be uncomfortably next to canniness. John straightens his shoulders and plunges back into the dark pit of stairs.

Their kitchen is nothing like the warm brotherhood of things he's left behind. It smells of methanal and tea leaves seeped once too many, and three drawers have to be prised open before John locates the paracetamol. He sets it next to the mug, steps back into the living room for tonight's selected weapon, loads it carefully and slips it in his jeans' back pocket.

Two minutes later, armed and dangerous, he is pushing Sherlock's door open with his foot.

* * *

><p>Rooms, it should be observed, change their skin at night.<p>

(Now for the worse, now the better. John's old room became a trap, an unimaginative purgatory, a lazar house at the first crack of dark. He still remembers how he turned that white lampshade on and off, because no light suffocated him, but light, when it came, splayed apart on the wall in the shape of an empty hourglass – and when John could no longer take the sight and jerked the curtains open, all they showed was through a glass, darkly.)

His new room has tartan apple green curtains. It changes into home at night.

Sherlock's room... is known to John by day. It still happens that Sherlock asks for things to be fetched and that John stops long enough in his room to acknowledge it for the clear mad space it is, a biggish version of Sherlock's skull (his, not the friend up the fireplace). For Sherlock's room is literally papered with papers, scripts and scraps and graphs and photographs, and Belknap's arpeggios for beginners bouncing across the wardrobe pannel like an ant family on a Benzedrine high. To John's untrained eye, Sherlock's room looks like the love child of a hard disk and a Rohrschach test, and he usually ends up leaning his forehead against the one wall left a salutary white for Sherlock to focus at nap-time. (« Zen masters are known to practise before a bare wall. » - « ... But wait, isn't Zen supposed to free you from thinking ? » - « Oh, shut up, John. »)

Thus, the room at day. Tonight, it looks different. For one thing, Sherlock's bedside lamp has a parchment shade that doesn't burn white, but casts an arc of pale blurry gold over the bedhead. It makes the room simpler by shoving the walls and their scrabble of data back into the shade. The shadows clear a way to the bed for John, and in the bed is Sherlock, clad in shabby pajamas and already taking a perfunctory – « Whisky » – sniff at Little Miss Sunshine.

« Spot on, Einstein. » John releases the mug into Sherlock's hands, dropping the paracetamol on the duvet. « Thank your stars you've been spared the ride to Costa Rica. And if you're set on binging yourself, try this first. You don't want to end up the wrong side of raffled, my friend. »

Sherlock's eyebrows knit over the mug rim, but he is too busy drinking his hot toddy to reply. By the time he's dosed and fluidized, John is settled on the edge of the bed and the light is curving softly around the two of them. In the golden blur, Sherlock's fine-boned face as he hands John the empty mug looks the slightest bit hazy – flesh made tender by the whisky's benign warmth.

« Don't go. »

Quiet words, hardly impressing the speaker's will upon the air, but John nods into the light. « Not on my agenda » he says quietly.

Sherlock's head tilts back upon his pillow as he shuts his eyes.

Slowly, exactly, John's left hand steals round to rest on his jeans' back pocket and take out his mobile. He brushes his thumb once across the screen before slipping it back. Then he crosses his hands on his lap and listens to Sherlock's slightly laboured breath for the next minute.

« _Jean_. » The name comes out in a surprised, happy huff of breath as Sherlock's eyelids flick open. « _Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venu avant ? Il est tard maintenant_."

The first word alone is familiar, though John's current feeling is that he would understand if Sherlock called out his name in Inuit. If he never even spoke but raised this face to him, pupils flushed dark and dilated as if they wanted to take all of John in custody.

John finds he is already responding in the flesh and clasps his hands tighter on his lap

« _Tu as l'air fatigué. Tellement tendu, ces jours-ci, je sais bien. Je te cause du souci, hein ?_ » Oh god, now he's smiling. Not his typical half-measure, solitary mouth corner angling up as if tugged from high on by some clever fisherman. No, Sherlock is giving John the full benefit of a buoyant, double-dimpling, eye-crinkling smile under his shock of curls. « _Regarde comme tu crispes ta bouche. Et tu ne te lèches plus les lèvres. Tu te lèches toujours la bouche aux moments où tu hésites_. »

The words are yet an enigma. And somehow the enigma has turned a worse torment, because French is such a physical language to John's ear, its ebb and flow rougher at the edge but rippling with overt sensuousness. So that while Sherlock could be merely ordering a fresh batch of disjecta membra for Christmas —

« _J'ai mémorisé sa forme, mais ça n'est pas assez. Je ne sais pas ce qu'elle donne sous mes doigts, sous mes paumes. Sous ma langue. Ah, Jean, si tu voulais_... »

— what John visualizes is Sherlock's mouth, coated with warmth and sugar and wet nakedness. Oh, and wetting his lips now, never pausing in speech, and John gives up all pretense at understanding. He is, after all, trusting the words to his Nokia (poor Clara's high-priced gift, complete with a Voice Memo application) and can let them wash over him, raising pulse points in his throat, his groin, his heart.

« _Si tu voulais_ » Sherlock repeats tiredly, and the light seems to fade from his eyes just as John leans forward to peel the duvet off the slim shoulders radiating warmth through several layers of cotton. He is close enough to smell Mrs Hudson's single malt on Sherlock and still mid-gesture. This is wrong. This is Sherlock off-limits, Sherlock fevered, Sherlock foreign. He re-directs his arm and switches off the lamp.

There is no more golden curve. John bends to drop a quick valediction kiss on the tangled head.

« I'll see us through this » he tells Sherlock. Silence answers as he grabs the empty cup on the bedside table. The walls are swarming with minuscule signs, larva-like, unreadable. John leaves the door half-ajar.

[_Jean. Pourquoi n'es-tu pas venu avant?_ Il est tard maintenant: John. Why didn't you come before? It's late now.

_Tu as l'air fatigué. Tellement tendu, ces derniers jours, je sais bien. Je te cause du souci, hein ?_ You look tired. You've been so tense, these days, I know. I'm the reason you worry, right?

_Regarde comme tu crispes ta bouche. Et tu ne te lèches plus les lèvres. Tu te lèches toujours la bouche quand tu hésites Look how contracted your mouth is_. And you no longer lick your lips. You always lick them when you feel hesitant.

_J'ai mémorisé sa forme, mais ça ne suffit. Je ne sais pas ce qu'elle donne sous mes doigts, sous ma paume. Contre ma langue_._ Ah, Jean, tu n'aurais qu'un mot à dire..._ I've committed its shape to memory but that's not enough. I don't know the feel of it under my fingers, my palm. Pressed to my tongue. Ah, John, just say the word...]

* * *

><p>The new day is its ordinary wintry self. John pours them tea.<p>

« Feel more rested? »

Sherlock's voice is hoarse as he answers. « I seem to have acquired a sore throat overnight. And my mouth feels all — furry. I — » He pauses. « Whisky. Of course. Diluted, however – mug, no, cup, telling white circle on my table. You took the cup back, didn't check for the mark. »

« There's always something » John says lightly.

Sherlock, however, is drumming two fingers on the tabletop. « So. Did I— »

« Yes. »

« And — did you — » Hoarse voice caught speechless. White face taut with that strange inbred defence, but John knows better by now than to trust Sherlock's appearances when sober. He puts his own cup down and rises, letting his friend see the resolve in his eyes before he smiles. And even then, waits for Sherlock to answer the smile, if not the resolve, with his own trademark lopsided grin.

« Not — yet. »

Ten minutes later, still smiling, he is flagging a cab and directing it to Westminster.

* * *

><p>« John! Come over here - the very man I need! »<p>

Eight thirty a.m., and the Homicide section has never been so alive. Lestrade is no exception, hailing John vigorously across the bustle of early morning policemen. « Say, how old are you ? »

John grabs the chair facing the DI's desk, currently rustling with a pellmell of papers. He spares them a chin nod. « Christmas lists from your team ? »

« They wish. No, Budget has seen the light and is introducing us poor sods to... » - Lestrade squints malevolently at the whey-coloured sheet flattened under his palm - « ... previsional result analysis. Your age, please. »

« Thirty-four. Why ? »

« Perfect. » Lestrade's ballpoint pen jabs a few vicious strokes at the form. « You've just given me my clearance rate for 2013. Mind you hold Sherlock to your word when it comes. » A few more boxes are checked before the filler sets down his pen. « Speaking of which, where's our bright boy ? If he's sent you for another cold case, point him to the break room. Coffee distributor's blown a fuse and is serving bloody iced Arabica all around. We could do with a spot of genius here, preferably before 2013. »

John shakes his head. « He's not with me, Greg. I've come to see you because I — well. I need some help. » There's a touch of concern in the tobacco-coloured eyes and John raises his hand quickly. « No, nothing to do with money. I'm doing fine on this front. No, I need you because — because I need someone who can speak French. »

« And you've hiked the whole way to consult me ? I'm flattered, but — come on, John, you have an expert at home. Don't tell me he's never mentioned his French grandma? Used to spend all his summers as a teen at her place, up to his eighteenth year. » Lestrade hesitates, pushing the form aside with a sigh. « At least that's what he told me in circumstances – well, it wasn't exactly a happy hour. But those summers... I guess they were the only time he was truly happy as a kid. »

And this, John thinks, could well explain that. What's more of a quizz is how he is going to explain « that » to Lestrade. He takes out his mobile and sets it on the table. Play straight is the best option here, and to hell with semantic niceties.

« Here's the thing » he says, and launches upon a stoic confession. Not an easy task, that; not with Lestrade's quiet eyes on him, still warm yet somehow keeping warmth on probation as the tale reaches back into last night and John's shifty course of action. But John soldiers on. He knows who is facing him across the expanse of hard oak – a man good enough in his own estimation to grace an old-time morality play, yet a man of his day; a warm-hearted realist, who has shown his unflinching concern for Sherlock in drugs busts and lies by omission (as John's Sig, this elusive witness to the defence, could testify).

« So yeah... » - John lowers his voice, though the office is sound-proof enough for its transparent walls – « ... basically, I'm asking you to translate a private conversation recorded on the sly and under the influence. Which is probably illicit and, morally speaking, downright crappy. But I don't see what else I can do. And it all boils down to trust issues, right ? »

Lestrade doesn't answer.

« I'm trusting him. I'm trusting this is not one of his « little tricks », to quote a common acquaintance – not a game, not an experiment on the resident guinea-pig's gullibility. I'm also trusting you not to use this against him, and I'm asking you to do the same. He wants something of me, Greg, and I'm ready to give it, whatever it takes, only... Houston, we have a bug! He's using the booze as a password for us to hack into whatever emotional storage he's got compacted here, but it's no use at all if it comes with a program filter. So all I can say, and I'll say it this once before you kick me out, is, trust me, please. With him. With this. And please help us. »

Still no answer, and John braces himself to stare back into Lestrade's steady eyes. He has counted up to twenty-nine when Greg nods to no one in particular and stretches out a hand over the paperwork.

« Okay, gimme. »

_(TBC)_


	3. Chapter 3

_Thanking everyone for the reviews, alerts, etc. and hoping the end won't disappoint you!_

This time, John gets the short end of waiting.

He watches as Greg listens to Sherlock's inaudible voice, and tries to steal a march on the DI by interpreting his body language - a flexed eyebrow, a hand raised to the DI's thin lips to still a thoughtful whistle, and Lestrade's eyes, sizing him up with an odd jubilant glint as he hands back John's property after less than a minute.

"Sweet Jesus on toast with marmite." Greg's profane incipit is followed by a low-keyed giggle. "Speak of previsional analysis. Knew it would come to this from day one, you two making sheep's eyes at each other across my yellow tape, but - pheww. No offence meant, Doc, but I've been told much more about your anatomical particulars than I ever wished to know."

John's wave of the hand signals that no offence is taken, but more data would be welcome.

"He, er." Damnit, they're grown boys, the three of them. "He likes me?"

"Like you? John, he's fairly hooked on you! This is — I've never heard the like of it. He sounded like a cross between a sweet sixteen and Alex Comfort. Christ, I don't know if I'm to warn you against breaking his heart or radio for a bodyguard. Just so you know, he wants to lick your mouth goodnight." Lestrade swallows and surveys his desk top, probably for a tot of iced Arabica, but John waves him on mercilessly. "He's memorized each and every muscle on your upper thigh, the left one, because you weren't facing him when you knelt to repair the fridge door. Next bit was a bit mumbled. I think he worships your armpits. Could be your kneecaps, though."

"Sounds more like you pulling my leg." John is laughing too, dizzy with the joy, leaning across the desk.

"Nope. Your kneecaps are worshipped, John, deal with it. And your - wait, what was it - crinkly tenor. That's your voice, I guess." Greg gesticulates with stolid gusto, entering the spirit of the task. "Your beautiful toned arms! Your - yes, Anderson, what is it?"

Anderson glugs something about unmatching samples and beats a hasty retreat.

"Damnit, you'd think they'd learn to knock when I'm investigating high-functioning erotica. Well, John, congrats and all that. And may I ask what your intentions are, laddie?"

"My— oh, ah." The brusque swerve from linguistic Cupid to inquisitive mentor figure leaves John momentarily speechless. His whole quest has been so focused on deciphering Sherlock's intentions that he hasn't had time to reflect on his own. "Well, I'll, er. I'll have to tell him I know about his, his feelings for me. And that I, well, sort of, er, like him too. Very much so. And that we should really sit and talk about all this." His gaze meets Lestrade's implacable shake of the head. "Before a strong — cuppa" John concludes lamely.

But even as he speaks, he knows this is the reasonable outlet, not the probable one. "Sit and talk" was all right with Sarah, who is a reasonably clever woman, with a doctor's gift for empathy and without a case history of repression that would make the late Sigmund Freud lick his venerable chops with abandon.

"Make it a cup of bubbly if you want to ensure the targeted results." Lestrade, it seems, is still caught up in his previsional high. "Yeah," John gripes back, summoning his best Captain-Watson-to-you-sonny scowl. "So he can spout some more frogspeak - no offence meant, Grog, er, Greg - and all I can do is clutch him there and then, and chances are he's never been clutched before. What if he hyperventilates? Oh god, what if he _hyperventilates in French_?"

"John, calm down. You're close to panicking yourself, while the answer is obvious. You're a doctor, for Chrissake!"

"Your point being?"

"Give him a taste of his medicine." John's Captainy scowl freezes into uncomprehending disbelief. "Yeah, you heard me. Mountain, Mahomet, old old song. He can't flirt in English? So chat him up in French."

"You can't be serious."

"I've never been more serious. There are twenty days to Christmas, more than enough to cram you with the necessary basics. We can practice here. Or at the pub. Ha! Trade you a crash course in voolay-voo for a pint. No, make it three, so we get the atmosphere right on rehearsal."

"Get the — you know what, that's fucking insane. I couldn't order a French stick in French to save my life!"

"You've done Pashto and Farsi to save your life. Of course you can do this."

"Bloody hell, Greg!"

"_Bon dieu_" Greg corrects beamingly. "Do we have a deal?"

"Yes! Damn you to Boxing Day and back, Gregory Lestrade!"

"Good!" Lestrade strides to the door, opens it widely and pretends not to hear Donovan and Anderson's fervent whispering in the adjacent office. "Oi, you lot! No trespassing till you get the all-clear. Violators will be cast as Santa at the Staff Children's Christmas Party - yeah, all of them. Survivors will be fed to Gregson. Thank ye!"

The door shuts on a stern click, letting the whispers rev up on the other side. There are now two young constables and four secretaries in Sally's cubhole.

"You know you've just totally and irrevocably compromised us, don't you?"

"Anything to keep them happy and bouncing. Now haul your beautiful toned thighs over here and let's start on _le b-a-ba_. And I want a full report on the 25th, chapter and verse."

The ballpoint pen is already sketching a human figure with a doodle of curls on the back of a paper sheet. John is nearly certain that the recto contains part of Budget's loving interrogatory but feels mean enough to keep his mouth shut. Greg is mouthing something that sounds like "pool" and apparently refers to Sherlock's shoulder. And John's shift begins in less than two hours.

To quote another long-haired git, tonight's going to be a hard day's night.

* * *

><p>Yet for all their hardness, the days are hurrying forth — December is on its last legs and determined to make a sprint of it. It rallies the polar winds from Scandinavia up Baker Street only to blow them back on a second thought, it fills Mrs Hudson's kitchen with Cox's luscious Orange Pippins and John's surgery with late vaccine enthusiasts. It even enacts a pre-Christmas miracle by galvanizing Sherlock Holmes into a vertical position so that he can be sped daily to the morgue. Days, nights, chores, snatched halts, they all storm John's tired excited brain in a wild round of hopscotch, as the twenty-fourth looms closer and closer.<p>

On the twelfth, John goes BAMF on French nasal vowels and Lestrade's leonine roars send most Yarders in their vicinity cowering while "DI's having words with his new boyfriend". Which shows that truth, at least partial, still comes from children's mouth.

On the fifteenth, Mycroft Holmes deftly blackmails his younger brother into finding a Greek interpreter kidnapped two days before an all-important UNO convention. Mr Melas is duly recovered and the conference is a success (from Mycroft's perspective) but John has to endure a few nightmares in which Sherlock pours out his heart in Cyrillic texts.

The eighteenth sees Mrs Hudson depart for her sister's house in Suffolk. John comes home to find sprigs of holly stuck in all the places where Sherlock has voided his spleen and John's Sig, and a singing card on their table along with a bottle of home-made Glogg. John leaves the card and hijacks the Glogg. There's a time and hour for everything, and he is still struggling through _On est copains, hein ? Bien. Maintenant, soyons amants _? [All right, we're mates. Now let's be lovers].

On the twenty-first, Sherlock tells his elder brother in rather forceful terms what he can do with his invitation to partake of peace, good will and apple stuffing. The same evening, John defeats the French student's arch-enemy, aka the "doggy letter" — the French R. An ecstatic Lestrade kisses the barmaid at the Brewery and Tap.

From his surgery, on the twenty-third, John sends Harry a twenty-word text. Upon receiving word that his sister will spend Christmas in a Detox Spa, he allows himself a minute's contemplation of their respective predicaments, and the irony thereof, before ushering in his next patient.

And on the twenty-fourth of December, on the strike of eight from the bells at St James' Church, John Watson enters his and Sherlock's common room, his leather vest dusted with frost and a brown paper bag dangling from his fingers on a string handle. Sherlock, who has been persuaded to research the toxic properties of holly through magnification rather than self-induced vomiting, unbends from his microscope and parts his lips.

"Bollinger Champagne" says John, looking his flatmate straight in the face.

Sherlock's stills in cautious disbelief before he throws his head back and starts laughing. "How did you —" He is still laughing as he steps aside to retrieve another brown bag – empty – from the sofa's shadow. There is a fire in the chimney, that provides the shadow. "Yours is Blanc de Noirs Brut, by the way. The cork design is very distinctive."

"Really, Mr Holmes." John sets his bottle on the coffee table, shoulder to shoulder with Sherlock's, brought fresh from the fridge, and two cups. "Child's play, even to a sidekick. Look at your absent tie. Look at the scruffed leather on your left slipper's toe. Plus, you were queuing before me at Sainsbury's."

Sherlock's eyes are brimming with laughtears, but his shoulders keep up a straight line as he bends to uncork the first bottle – his, naturally. The glasses foam over with the drink and John's blood, flooding his heart in synch, slows to a dull hum as it has learnt to do before the act. They clink their glasses together, wordlessly, and drink.

The wine is sharp velvet frost to John's throat. He fights the urge to clear it, seeking Sherlock's eyes indeed. Eyes clear as the frost, sparking a light known to both of them, Sherlock's signal that the game is on. Eyes unquiet, their silver nerves visible in the fireglow, taut with... what? Tenacity? Lust? Apprehension?

John drops his gaze and raises his glass. He selects his words carefully, conscious that this may be the moment that seals their beginnings to now in a perfect circle, or unmakes everything between them.

"Want to taste some more ?"

Sherlock's answer is half-laughed, half-rushed. "God, yes."

* * *

><p>"Mrs Hudson."<p>

"Mrs Hudson."

"London."

"Why London?"

"Why not?" Sherlock's voice is already a bit slurred. "Y'toasted the Yard two cups ago. Quite warmly too."

"Yeah, well, you're rather expected to cheer absent friends and relatives at this stage of – things. Hand over your glass."

"Absent friends."

John giggles. "Right y'are. I give you ships, wooden ships, ships that sail the sea, and I give you the best of ship, friend —" But Sherlock is resting his cheek against his outstretched arm, his empty cup at half-mast and his fingertips ghosting John's short-cropped nape. John shifts course hoarsely and a little prematurely. "The New Year."

"Th'year's an ab — an abs — "

"An absent friend ?"

"An ab-stract — entity. You just can't – toast'n' – tity."

This tides them over another wave of glee as they keel against each other in raw, helpless delight. Sixteen, John thinks, I'm bloody sixteen. Hard as nails just peeping at the V of his shirt, and it's not like he _had_ tits in the first place. He flicks his eyelids to chase the tears, opening them to a warm wisp of breath on his cheek.

"_Joyeux Noël, mon Jean_." [Happy Christmas, my John.]

John fights the urge to scuttle back into blindness. If he's doing this, he's doing it clear-eyed. He licks his lips, more to flex his tongue than indulge Sherlock's rather endearing fetish, and smiles. "_Joyeux Noël, _Sherlock."

So far, so good.

Something surges briefly over his friend's face – a spasm here and gone, not unlike a computer glitch – and John, for one tight hearbeat, wonders if Sherlock is busy deleting French. He flings himself into the breach. "_Il— ah — il faut que je te parle_. _Oui ?_" [I need to speak to you. Yes ?] It's fantastic, this new clarity – this feeling that he has invaded another strange land, Sherlock's forbidden mindscape, no, heartscape really, and is meeting him there on nearly equal ground. Come what may, any angel with his flaming sword – John will take them bare-handed and in French.

But – "_Oui"_echoes between them instantly, and John groans in relief. This is too much. This is the closest to epiphanic he's been yet, and he really, really needs a drink. The Blanc de Noirs, while neither black nor white, is insanely burning, as if the glass holding it was porous enough to let the gold flow straight in from the fireplace. "_Oui" _Sherlock has said, and it gives an extra sensation to John's mouth. "_Oui" _John repeats to him, though to his beginner's ear it sounds like cooing, and closes his free hand over Sherlock's.

Two glasses roll down onto the rug. Another more figurative cup is close to overflowing as John musters his strength for the last, greatest leap of faith.

"_Alors écoute-moi._". [So listen to me.] "_Tout ce que tu m'as dit, je le sais. Ça me va. Mon tour de te proposer_..." Hell, double doggy letter fail. Forget the fail. Breathe deep, hold tight, _go_. "_On est copains, hein ? Bien. Maintenant, soyons amants ?_"[Everything you told me, I know and it's all right with me. Now it's my turn to make you an offer... We're friends, right ? Good. What about being lovers ?]

Fuck, he's done it. He's truly done it and, consequences be blown, he's feeling Olympic. All Ulysses had to do to get his mate was send an arrow through twelve axe-heads, but John Watson has bested eight French nasal vowels in a row. Now he can close his eyes in fierce elation.

The mouth that answers him is firmer than any woman's mouth for all its apparent softness. It has an odd little knob of flesh on its upper lip, like a bee-sting, that sets John's spine tingling, as Sherlock misses John's lips at first, kissing his chin eagerly. "_Oui" _he adds as an afterthought, and grazes John's mouth with his tongue for good measure.

"_Oui_, you infernal tongue-teaser." John wraps his arms around his prize and half-lifts, half-pulls him on his lap, Sherlock's nose bumping softly into his cheek as he zips down once more for John's mouth. "_Oui_ to this and much, much more, because I'll want more, Sherlock. I'll want what's inside that smart tight shirt and lower, I'll want to do things to you sober that will make your body come in any fucking tongue you like, provided it comes under mine. And again, and again, until I know it by heart, every pore of it, and then more. _Oui_, Sherlock ? Say it, love. _Oui _?"

There's much more he could tell Sherlock in these vivid, intimate words – how he's watched Sherlock's mouth in sleep and Sherlock's bright sheen of sweat in fever – how the last weeks have raised a new man in him, fighter apart, who was transported by what he saw. But John is done with words, and so is Sherlock, seemingly, as they tumble back on the couch in a knot of long limbs and short, champagne-scented breaths, and begin to celebrate Christmas in earnest.

* * *

><p>Greg's text has the decency to tweet itself in twelve hours later, when John is emerging from his third post-coital doze. "<em>Alors, mon vieux ?<em>" [What news, mate?]

John is about to type a human, all too human "!" when he's distracted by a body sidling closer against his back. It looks like Sherlock Holmes is waking up, and John drops his mobile where he's found it – on the floor, nestled in his rumpled trousers – before he turns over cautiously on the narrow couch.

He is rather curious to hear in which language he will be greeted this morning.

Sherlock opens an eye, says "Hmmmmm"in a decisive tone of voice, and pulls John to him for an open-mouthed kiss.

FINIS


End file.
